President Obama speaks about unemployment benefits in the East Room on Tuesday. Photo: AP

Maybe this new year will be the charm, and the economy will indeed take off.

In the meantime, it’s hard to square the president’s assurances we are recovering nicely with his claim that it is imperative Congress extend long-term unemployment benefits even further. That’s the debate now under way in the US Senate.

Democrats want to extend for another three months jobless benefits that have already been extended for as much as two years. Some Republicans oppose any extension on the grounds that, as some of President Obama’s own economic advisers have noted, longer benefits generally mean longer unemployment.

Other Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner, say they’re willing to pass the package — so long as Congress offsets the $6.5 billion it will cost with spending cuts elsewhere.

The truth is America’s unemployed are in this fix for one reason: In the most anemic recovery since World War II, our economy isn’t creating enough jobs. And employers trying to figure out how much more they will have to pay because of ObamaCare are not expanding — in part because they fear what other costs may be coming next from this president.

The president argues that “extending unemployment insurance actually helps the economy by creating more jobs.” You heard right: When government subsidizes unemployment, it is creating jobs.

In hard times, American families set priorities for their budgets. If the president believes this extension is as vital as he claims, what’s unreasonable about paying for it by cutting spending somewhere else?